ima
by promessa
Summary: ME2. Post-Samara loyalty mission. Jack and Samara have a chat after the visit to Omega. One-shot.


**ima**

* * *

_Shh. Don't cry, honey. It's okay now, mommy's here. Come here… up we go. _

…

_See? It's not so bad. Right? _

…

_That's right. You're such a good girl. Oh, my brave little—_

* * *

Jack awakens as she always does: impulsively and disoriented, like a newborn. But it is to be expected—sleep is a messy, chaotic thing for her, and she is still far too acclimated to waking up at irregular intervals and at locales unfamiliar. It takes her a confused moment to place the darkness and soullessness of her surroundings before she remembers that she is still aboard the Normandy. Right where she should be: away from everyone.

Her instincts are a step ahead of her mind, as it always has been, and before she can even fully orient herself she hears something. A hollow ringing of foot to metal down the staircase leading to her place in the Engineering deck: the likely culprit behind her abrupt awakening. And it is not Shepard for once; she had learned to recognize those steps long ago.

No, this is a new one. She quickly pushes herself to a sitting position on her cot and places the pistol she always carries on the canvas of her bed, adrenaline pounding. She _hopes_ it's someone looking for trouble—maybe that bitch Cerberus cheerleader. It would give her an excuse to empty a thermal clip into that uppity whore. On accident.

But it is an asari, and not Miranda, that steps into view. Jack nevertheless tightens her grip around her pistol when she sees who it is, but this time not out of excitement. This one could actually _be_ a threat.

"To what do I owe pleasure?" Jack drawls lazily, mustering as flippant an expression as she can manage.

Samara remains at a careful distance, hidden enough in the dimness of the corridor. Her eyes flicker to Jack's fingers around the pistol and then back to its owner. Samara looks unsurprised, even disinterested, towards Jack's efforts at maintaining her guard.

"I simply wanted to thank you for accompanying me to Omega."

Jack gives Samara an incredulous look, uncertain about the sincerity of those words.

"Don't mention it. Shepard points, I listen like a good little girl and fuck up everything in that general direction."

Samara nods, as if Jack has expressed great wisdom. But she says no more. A few long seconds pass and Jack stares at Samara expectantly, wondering if the asari knew how a conversation works. If there is to be one. Which Jack sincerely hopes there won't be.

"We done here?" Jack finally asks, impatient. Samara instead continues to stare at her, eyes blue like the skies of Jack's memory, still and grand and mysterious. There is a sadness there now, too, one that was not there before; the barest tuft of cloud in that gaze, restrained, but there nonetheless.

Jack knows pain. She's seen it in many forms. She does not recognize the pain in Samara's eyes, but she doesn't care enough to ask.

"I will remember what you have done for me," Samara replies. Whether she has detected the edge in Jack's tone is unclear, but she makes no move to leave. "It is a debt I hope to repay, when the time is right."

A valueless offer if there ever was one. Jack knows that anything worth asking for would fall outside the jurisdiction of Samara's something-something-code-or-other that had been muttered from the engineers above during their breaks.

"You don't owe me, all right? It was practically shore leave as far as I'm concerned. I didn't even get to crack any heads down there. It was boring. And you have to _try_ for shit to be boring on Omega."

Jack pauses, recalling the grim silence between Shepard and Samara when they had exited the luxurious apartment complexes on Omega. She had recognized those looks on their faces, understood the meaning of their silence well enough. There was a time when she would stare into the mirror of her cell and doubt herself back on Pragia, knowing that the children she didn't kill during the fights were bound for a fate worse than death. A time when she had thought victory at any cost was too much.

Shepard and Samara were soft, naïve idiots.

"You could tell me what happened down there," Jack abruptly chances.

Samara remains silent.

"Pft. Fine. Not like I care," Jack says even though she did, but not about _her_.

This should be the end of it. But still Samara lingers in the shadows, watching Jack with that strange look that was beginning to make the biotic feel slightly unnerved.

"The hell you still want? Why you eying me like that?"

Samara remains voiceless a moment longer, as if purposefully trying Jack's patience. "I feel compelled to caution you about your inclination towards destructive behavior. It could be a danger to civilians, but more importantly, to you."

"Yeah? And I feel compelled to tell you to fuck off and mind your own business."

Again, this should be the end of it. Jack is not the most welcome conversation partner.

Instead Samara takes a step closer. But no more.

"Mastery over yourself will lend to greater efficiency with your biotics. It will affect other aspects of your life as well."

"You sound like that fucking peppy redhead that comes down here and keeps telling me that I'm too angry. And here's the same answer she gets. Fuck. Off." Jack gives Samara a cautionary glare. "You're starting to get annoying."

The asari merely stares, accepting the unsaid warning with composure.

"You are a talented biotic—"

"You don't say," Jack interrupts sarcastically, not knowing that this is enough to tell Samara that her change in approach is the right one.

"You are a talented biotic that rivals some of the best I've encountered in my years as justicar," Samara continues. "But your eagerness brings about undue strain, something that may prove perilous in a prolonged fight."

Jack gives the pistol at her side a spin like a girl playing with a top, as if reminding both of them that it's still there.

"So what? I get the fucking job done."

"I believe I can instruct you in some capacity. Self-control and discipline are things I have had many years to reflect upon. As are biotics." Samara explains in that neutral, distant tone that almost makes Jack believe that the justicar possesses no other motives.

But Jack is no fool. Not anymore. Everyone wants something and this asari is unlikely to be different. Jack just needs to figure out what that something is.

"I don't need anyone to teach me anything." Jack challenges again, enough threat in her voice to show that the offer meant little.

Samara chances another step forward while Jack awaits her answer. "When our time comes to engage the Collectors, the battle shall likely prove to be extensive. Each action we perform _must_ count. You and I are not exempt from this. I simply desire to ensure that you are up to this task. By my estimation, you are not."

There it is, Jack thinks, dismissing Samara's final comment. Self-preservation. Survival. Samara must recognize Jack's biotics enough to know that the backwards human's a real bad-ass when it comes to getting the job done. Samara sees Jack as another pawn, just like all the others, but at least the motive is clear now. If this is Samara's intention (and how could it not be?), then the logic is sensible and easy for Jack to digest and accept. This realization is enough for Jack's guard to lower somewhat.

"Heh," Jack chuckles, and it comes out more like a grunt. "This is all bullshit, but if you want to test my biotics in a fight or something, what kind of girl would I be to turn that down?"

"I seek no such thing," Samara answers calmly. "I merely request an opportunity to assist you. I believe something as plain as meditation would be sufficient for me to observe the extent of discipline you have over yourself. With continued practice, it will also improve your efficiency in battle. I devote much of my time to this task."

Meditation. The very word itself is boring to Jack. She purposefully gives an obnoxiously loud, faux-yawn in response to Samara's offer.

"Anything that needs me to sit still for long periods of time is a no-go."

Samara gestures elegantly with one hand to their surroundings. "Surely you must already be accustomed to it by now."

At this, Jack manages a bark of laughter, real and genuine. Her guard slips ever further.

"You're telling me. I can't wait for all this shit just to be over with. Thanks to Shepard, now I have a ton of Cerberus people that I need to pay a visit to. And I can't _wait."_

Taking this as a sign of agreement, Samara gracefully lowers herself where she stands to the cold, metallic deck, crossing her legs as she did so. Upon clasping her hands together she watches Jack, her expectant gaze sufficiently conveying that she would not leave without Jack joining her.

After a moment of consideration, Jack sits opposite the asari, not even bothering to hide the distaste across her features.

"You'll get off my back after this crap is over with, right?"

Samara makes no answer either way and instead raises her arms just enough for her forearms to be parallel to the floor—a movement that is calculated and practiced, but with the experience behind it, graceful and smooth.

"It is important to perform this with a mind devoid of distractions. It is not to say that your mind should be empty, but rather, you should be focused and disciplined in your thoughts. Thoughts that bring you peace. I myself picture a certain location on Thessia where me and my—where I used to spend my matron years when I needed to calm my mind," Samara corrects herself, her soothing tone never changing throughout. "Once you have achieved peace, it becomes a challenge of consciously training yourself to manipulate your biotics at the same time. The final step is to perform both for extended periods of time."

Samara quiets, and in mere seconds there is an invisible tension that leaves her body, an action so subtle that if Jack had not had her eyes trained on the asari the entire while there would have been no means to even sense if there had been a change. But what Jack can detect is how the air begins to crackle invisibly with biotics; even self-contained, the presence of a mass effect field is easily noticeable to a fellow biotic.

"If we can even bring you a few moments of inner peace during meditation, I believe it shall be reflected in how you approach future conflicts," Samara continues, and just as quickly as it had been there, the ghostly static clinging in the air slides away.

"Do I have to do that stupid hand thing you're doing?"

"It is what is most natural to me."

Jack intakes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush, attempting to relax. She doesn't raise her arms, instead keeping them pressed against her knees. "Okay, I guess here goes nothing."

"If your mind finds peace, your body will shortly follow," Samara notes, sensing what Jack is trying to do.

"Whatever," Jack replies but closes her eyes nevertheless, trying to find this mysterious happy place that Samara had told her to seek out. But after a few moments of silence it occurs to Jack that there has never been a place truly called home and though she fumbles through her memories wildly in search of something to hold onto, nothing is there.

The only peace she feels is after a fight. After a good kill. After she's found just the right situation, one to slake her battle-lust, and she has everyone right where she wants them and their eyes begin to fill with the slow-realizing horror that she was going to—

"Your features are stiff," Samara says, breaking into Jack's thoughts and shattering the fantasy.

Jack opens one eye, irritated at the interruption. "Who the fuck cares? I just found that 'calm-my-mind' place you were telling me about."

"It involves violence, does it not?"

"Who the fuck cares?" Jack repeats, her other eye now opening as well. "I was just about to say it was working, too. I'm starting to want to hand out some ass-kickings right about now, though."

"I understand violence excites you," Samara explains quietly, making it clear that Jack's reputation was known to her. "But that is not the purpose of meditation. We are trying to achieve peace. You recollections of battle-highs are unrelated."

"I'm shit out of ideas then. Unless I think of some of my favorite recreational—"

"There must be something," Samara insists strongly.

"There isn't."

"…Then focus on the void. Do not force your thoughts."

Jack obeys her commands without a snide remark this time, closing both eyes and embracing the darkness behind them. Her mind begins to wander and what comes to her is not the peace that Samara insists exists, but instead Jack thinks of how she is sitting, and how her shoulders feel a bit tight, and how she so badly wants to wrap her fingers around that Cerberus cheerleader's neck and—

"Peace," Samara's voice cautions from the shadows.

Jack resets and tries to think of nothing. But nothing is boring, and Jack is all but about to give up for good when something _does_ come to her mind.

Jack has no pleasant memories of life before Pragia. Pragia is what had defined her, shaped her. Her parents had been the Cerberus captors that occasionally beat her a little less when she was performing well. Her playmates, enemies to be slaughtered. A single desk, a single table, her room nothing but a cage.

But there is a woman's voice in her head, now. Unintelligible. Soothing. Stilling her cries, whispering in her ear, a warmth around her strong and kind and yet indistinct and intangible.

This memory makes her want to cry. But she's not brave enough to do so and instead buries her mind in this warmth, this gentleness that she never had.

It is only after what seems like ages that she feels a real warmth on one of her hands, now. She leaves the memory reluctantly, feeling it coming apart at the edges, and is unsure if she will ever see it or remember it again even if she put all that she was into trying to do so.

Her eyes open to see Samara leaning forward, reaching with a dainty hand that is now clasped over her own.

"Excellent," Samara says once she sees Jack has returned to her senses. There's a rare smile on the asari's face as she withdraws her hand from Jack's. Her expression is softer than Jack has ever seen, no longer so tranquil that it froze. And there is a pride there, in her eyes now.

Pride in Jack.

Strange. Jack has seen that emotion so rarely that she can only stare wide-eyed at Samara, taking a few moments to confirm it.

"That is enough for today." Samara rises, movements elegant and controlled, much like a dancer's. She does not even ask whether or not the meditation has worked. There is no need; even as Jack pushes herself up off the floor roughly, like a boy after falling over during playtime, she still feels the effects: something familiar and forgotten, long ago. "It is a promising start. I hope you will heed my words well and meditate regularly."

Jack merely nods. Samara returns it with satisfaction.

"I shall return to my quarters, then."

Samara makes it to the staircase before Jack finally moves after her.

"I… wait," Jack requests, her strides containing more urgency than she would like as she chases after the asari. Samara does so after ascending the first two steps, halting to questioningly look towards Jack.

Thanks, is what Jack wants to say. Thank you.

But those are words she cannot say: not yet, and not to her.

"Some serious shit happened down there, didn't it?" comes out instead, only because it had been in the back of her mind. In her own emotional uncertainty, the words come out far more prodding than she intends.

Samara's gaze hardens.

"I would appreciate it if you did not ask any further questions about this."

"I… listen, I didn't mean it like that," Jack backtracks, nevertheless feeling hurt by the steel in Samara's tone. For a moment, Jack had believed that Samara had been someone she could have trusted, and that Samara had some amount of trust in her as well. Apparently the asari did not think the same way. "I just… I'm not good with soft shit, okay? I just thought you were… different, just now."

Jack's honesty is enough for Samara to consider her, pondering what she is willing to part with.

"I have seen what happens to those that become drunk on power. On hedonism." There is an edge to Samara's voice, one that is amplified by the fact that she never speaks with anything but serenity.

This is not the direction Jack had expected things to go. It is not the direction that Samara wishes it to go. But neither can read the other's mind, and when Samara says "I had hoped to teach you to avoid that fate," something snaps in Jack.

Because the words sound as if it is pity, and there are few things Jack loathes as much as that.

"I get it. Oh, I get it now. I remind you of someone, don't I? Probably yourself when you were younger, miss perfect?" Jack's voice rises, the peace in her mind now evaporating.

Something crosses Samara's features, unreadable. "That my maiden years were turbulent is—"

"Fuck that. I don't need any of this. I'm myself and none of you are going to change me."

Samara stares at Jack with that familiar blank expression that is starting to become annoying again.

"Please. We can discuss this another time. I must meditate on today's events," Samara finally says, attempting to resolve the conflict.

"Go do that. A bunch of good that bullshit will do you."

Jack will later convince herself that she means those words and will believe it thereafter. But at that moment, it's nothing more than a slip of tongue, unknowing of its consequences.

Any softness remaining in Samara's expression fades instantaneously. Again, she is fully in control of all that she is. And likewise, Jack can sense this change and feel her own walls coming back up, shielding the deepest part of her, her already bleeding heart that had been gasping for air for too long now being protected from the hurt that is sure to come.

"You are a repellant being," Samara begins.

"Oh ho, here it comes."

"I had hoped to teach you even some compassion." Samara sounds flat… disappointed, even. "But now I consider my debt repaid and I can only hope that once our mission reaches a conclusion, we are not fated to meet again."

Samara levels an icy glare at Jack.

"Though if I see you actively kill an innocent during my remaining time here, you can be assured I will be after you."

Jack's fists tighten in response. "Yeah? Why don't we fucking just get it over with now? Why wait?"

Samara only stares back at her, the earlier cold fire now devolving into frost again.

"Nothing to say? Oh, I get it now. Aw, does wittle miss justicar need to go to Shepard for permission?" Jack takes a threatening step forward, her biotics now beginning to flare up dangerously. "Don't worry. Self-defense has got to be in those rules of yours."

Even in the face of this danger, Samara merely waits for the fire to burn out of Jack. To any but her, this would be a fruitless, fatal endeavor. But Samara is confident in herself and in her patience.

She has hunted targets by the glow of starlight in the darkness of worlds that no one on the Normandy could imagine. She has chased a Spectre for days, fighting for hours on end and never giving in.

She has hunted her own daughter for over four hundred years.

Samara_ knows _patience.

"Unless you do something that violates the Code, I will treat you as I do any other," Samara states coldly when she senses Jack's killing aura wane. Without waiting for Jack to respond, Samara ascends the steps without a look back. "I hope that our conflict does not disrupt our duties."

"Stay the fuck out. Bitch," Jack growls, turning and heading back towards her cot. The threat is empty, defensive in its intentions. Break what you can't have. End it before it ends you.

She does not see Samara pause near the top of the stairwell, looking as if she is to say something more. But the moment is brief and Samara fully disappears up the staircase as a shadow in the currents of the ocean, transient and fleeting.

Jack doesn't wait for the echoes of Samara's steps to disappear before she punches the wall with a ferocity that demands every fiber of her strength. For a brief moment she realizes that Samara had been right—she's no good at holding back, in battle or otherwise.

But contrary to what even Jack believes, there are no biotics behind the blow. There is nothing left but a soulless ringing and a dull, throbbing pain in her right hand.

Jack stares emotionlessly at the blood now staining her tattooed knuckles. And she starts to laugh.

She laughs and laughs and laughs at herself, trying to recall what had made everything fall apart like this and why she had not just blown apart the entire lower deck. But try as she might she can only think of the calm she had always sought after in her grasp only moments ago, how she had crushed it with her own hands like she did with everything, how truly warm Samara's hand had been, and feels a painful emptiness that is both new and familiar all at once.

* * *

Moments later and a deck above, an asari stares off into the stars and remembers lullabies and the smallness of her daughters' hands and how Mirala had been so strong and so damaged too, with the sort of loneliness only a mother could see.

-End-

Author's Note: Thanks to Larania Drake for the prompt and Flareonwolf for literary corrections.


End file.
